TYR is one of my favourite heavy album, also adore Headless Cross. Tony Martin is the best singer who have Black Sabbath, I don't like Ozzy much more.

I think a repress of their Martin's era albums it's asolutely required!!!

I think the utter abandoning of Martin's stint in Black Sabbath is one of the greatest crimes ever committed. Albums like Tyr, Headless Cross, Cross Purposes et al. are awesome. I've been rocking out to Tyr all week, loving the sheer emotion of Anno Mundi and the balls-crushing energy on The Law Maker. Tony Martin is an amazing singer though, like totally world-class. It's a goddamn shame how little respect this era gets; it should be compared with the Ozzy and Dio stints.

I bought Headless Cross and Tyr at my local record score for, like, eight bucks a piece many moons ago. Two of the best purchases I've ever made.




One of the best ever. That acoustic solo crumbles kingdoms.

Tony still does the songs himself, and he still has a beastly voice despite being in his mid-50s. See below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64BH37ZFLeE

hey, good thought; i really ought to check out that 1989 stuff then because I really do like Headless Cross but the production (swarthy reverb indeed!) and sometimes those keyboards really bug me.

As to Martin's performance..yeah, I can buy that; it happens to even the best guys.

I still think he sounds like Bonn Jovi sometimes though.

Edit: I'm listening to the concert on Youtube now (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqidfZiFYvE
) and Martin is still failing to hit many notes. I'm pretty sure that the chorus of "Headless Cross" is a tape. Still pretty cool though...Iommi always brings the best....the version of "Heaven on Hell" in here is pretty good.

I'm kind of nonplussed by all the praise this era gets. I mean I get liking it (I do somewhat myself, as I said) but it's nowhere near as revolutionary or life-altering as the Ozzy or even Dio eras of the band. I don't see Black Sabbath changing anybody's ideas about music from 1987-1995, basically, and while that's not a crime, it just doesn't stack up against the real groundbreaking classics of the band. And I'm inclined to think that Dehumanizer is still a better album than any of these.

Listening to Cross Purposes for the first time in a while. This is better than I remember. I really love Alice in Chains now, so maybe that was the missing ingredient in why this never clicked for me the same way as other Martin albums before. There is a lot of real, genuine sorrow and pain on this, just like good Sabbath should always have. "Dying for Love" and "Immaculate Deception," holy shit - these are excellent tunes. And "Cross of Thorns" - if you're a Sabbath fan and you don't think that's awesome, how do you even call yourself a fan at all? This is pure classic Sabbath to the bone.

"Cross of Thorns" is a great song; it was actually the first thing I heard by the band that wasn't sung by Ozzy. I used to play it for people and try and get them to guess what band had made the song.

The slow, sorrowful numbers in the Martin era are generally really good. He has a fitting voice for that kind of thing.

Headless Cross I think is the most underrated heavy metal records of the 80s. How anybody can write off that record solely because it's not Ozzy or Dio singing is completely insane.

I think that, if you look at the records for what they are, they're still pretty good. The only problem is that they're just not as good as the Dio era or Ozzy era (ignoring the last two they made together of course).

=D I'm glad I'm not the only one who hears it. Martin doesn't sound all that much like Layne Staley, but he's able to articulate the same emotional realism in his voice, and I definitely think Iommi took a couple of cues from Cantrell in constructing the riff patterns on Cross Purposes. And I find the influence more than welcome, because, as I've said before, I regard Alice in Chains as the purest successor to the original Sabbath sound, and so it makes sense, to me, that Sabbath would release an album in Cross Purposes that draws from that same feeling. It definitely has a feel similar to Facelift, imo.

And aye, "Immaculate Deception" is a beast, and not only my favorite song on Cross Purposes in particular but probably from the entire Martin era. The lyrics are excellent:

I don't know about that. I view each of Sabbath's eras as almost completely new bands. That, to me, is the brilliance of Iommi. There are moments on the Martin albums that I would take over some moments of the Dio era, and Ozzy too.

Headless Cross and Tyr live on in my mind as absolute Sabbath classics. I don't need to compare them to Mob Rules or Sabotage. It's not even really the same vein of Metal, when you think about it. Why bother saying which is better?

The real tragedy of Sabbath, if there is one, is that the general public just listens to Paranoid or Iron Man and thinks that's all there is to Sabbath. They have absolutely no idea how varied and creative this band has been for eons. The scope and the breadth of the creativity is astonishing.

Well that's because that's the only Sabbath the general public knows. Everyone knows who Ozzy Osbourne is, fewer know who Dio was, and almost nobody outside of die hard metalheads know who Tony Martin is.

That's definitely missing the point.

The songs that they wrote for the first couple of Ozzy albums were amazing, groundbreaking and brilliant in incredibly many ways. The Dio songs were generally less innovative, but they were still awesome heavy metal with one of the greatest metal singers of all time. Martin certainly is better than Ozzy as a singer, but from what I've heard, the hard rock oriented songwriting approach on his albums isn't interesting in the slightest, and he's not that good a singer as to make me listen to those albums regardless.

I didn't mean everyone that dislikes the album. I was specifically referencing people I've talked to about Black Sabbath in the past that immediately write off albums like Headless Cross or Tyr or even Born Again solely because it's not Ozzy or Dio on vocals.

Definitely. This is the point why the Martin albums are mostly forgotten. The songwriting just isn't up to the scratch when compared with the first six or even the first two Dio albums. The best songs (which is the majority on the first six at least) found on those are almost timeless. Songs like Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener, Under the Sun/Everyday Comes and Goes, A National Acrobat, The Writ, Megalomania etc. still sound fresh today while the Martin-era is firmly rooted in its time and sounds very dated. At least the first three. It's been ages since I heard Cross Purposes or Forbidden so can't speak for those. Martin is a good vocalist and the albums aren't bad - they do have their high points like Anno Mundi - but Tony (Iommi) just doesn't have his heart as much set on the songwriting than he did before.

Sounds like cock rock to me. I tried to get into some of it, but why accept mediocre music when Black Sabbath had so many classics before and then even put together an album like "Dehumanizer" that totally killed anything they had done since "Mob Rules"? Martin wasn't terrible, but his style was too cheesy and the music he was given to work with was pathetic and shouldn't have been released under the Sabbath moniker.

I think people overestimate that whole "no Ozzy stigma".

Lots of people discovered Sabbath through the Tony Martin albums... and didn't give a shit. Despite promotional efforts, videos, etc... nobody gave a shit. Because they just didn't think it was good enough. Can't blame them when the man behind it all, Tony Iommi, doesn't seem to care about that era either. If those albums had kicked ass, they would have been cherished by all.

And on the subject of the drop in quality, I don't think it is solely because Iommi's heart wasn't in the music but rather because by that time, it wasn't a band anymore. It's a staple of rock music that most of the timeless efforts are created by peers. Sure, there's often a band leader or two but it's the fact that you have equals in the band to tell you about your fucking lame ideas that make it work. The fact people call you on your bullshit even if they aren't as prolific as you because they can.

You can't hire a reggae fan who is as charismatic as Bill Gates and a bunch of soulless mercenaries and automatically recreate a genuine feeling of doom of Sabbath, even if your name is Tony Iommi. They just don't care enough, they don't have the same stakes as you, they won't call you out on your terrible ideas and they don't fit anyway.

Band chemistry always has, and always will trump individual talent.

I remember Tyr being utter horseshit, but strangely I don't hate The Eternal Idol even though Martin is a far weaker singer than Dio he has a better voice than Ozzy ever did. I have to check out Headless cross now.

They're all worth listening at least once, if only to satisfy curiosity.

I think Eternal Idols has my favorite riffs from the Martin-era but most of the songs end up being terrible despite that.

I like it it's generally ear-pleasing hard rock for what it is, Martin has a very good voice. I might pick it up this check for nothing else other than Martin alone.

While I agree that the Ozzy and Dio eras have more classic songs and are ultimately better overall, I think both of you are undervaluing the Martin albums all the same. The songwriting is just fine and they're great metal albums on their own. They didn't pave the way for anything new, which is why rock popular history has forgotten them, but they work just fine as albums on their own - mainstream acceptance and popularity has never really been a concern in metal anyway, and fans of late 80s power metal will find much to cherish in Headless Cross, Tyr and Cross Purposes. Probably Eternal Idol too, though I never really liked that one as much. But the demographic here who are heavily into the kind of obscure mid to late 80s/early 90s power/heavy metal from the US will dig them; that much is proven. They have their own niche.

I'm generally with macMoney on this, obviously, even though I enjoy at least a few songs from all of these Martin albums. Fair question then: Would we be better disposed toward the albums if they had been released under a different bandname? Possibly so. Like it or not, the name Black Sabbath has a huge legacy attached to it; it is impossible to divorce Sabbath in the late 80s/90s from what came before under this name, and that's why we're just not all that crazy about the albums. Bands have to at least try and live up to their most groundbreaking efforts. If it can't be done, what's the point of continuing?

It is a fair question. It can go several different ways, however.

It's possible that if they had been released under a different name, they would have had to dig really deep to find a significant record company that's gonna back vanilla hard rock mixed with a few hints of metal in that time period.

It's possible that some people judge it too harshly because it's Sabbath. It's also probable that a lot of people have their Iommi rose-colored glasses and haven't caught up with the fact this sounds like second rate Demon.

We'll probably never know the exact truth.

What we do know is that studies point to people reacting favorably to established brands and that is why these names have such economic value. From a business standpoint, it was a good move for short term gains. It does dilute your brand however when you milk it without care.

Yes. Long time ago I found the audio online. Overall, it was fairly good. The Cross Purpose's songs where great. My only perk was that some of the Ozzy-era songs sounded somewhat... weird? From what I recall, Martin's voice doesn't fit at all in the style of Ozzy's songs, specially Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

As a disclaimer from my previous opinion, I want to state that it has been at least three years since I last listened to the aforementioned record, so probably I'm wrong about Martin's rendition on early-Sabbath material.

Anyway, if you dig the awesome album that is Cross Purposes, that live album is a mandatory listen for you. Particularly for "Cross of Thorns"; the live version is way better than the studio one.

For me Martin be a great vocalist . I don't listen Black Sabbath now but they are be a very big part of my life in past . I steel remember and hear song "Call of the wind" in my head and this is great stuff Cozy Powel drums and Martin vocal in this song be amazing , powerful !

The Eternal Fucking Idol is by far in the top 5 Black Sabbath albums for me.
If you don't dig songs like Born To Lose, you've got some serious issues.

The Martin era isn't as timeless, groundbreaking, life-affirming as the first 6 or the first two with Dio. But so what? Iommi was 20 years into his career by that point and not many bands continually make groundbreaking music in their career. The Martin era (Headless Cross and Tyr in particular) carried on the sound Sabbath established with Heaven & Hell and did a damn good job of it... that's enough for me, to be frank (Anthony Iommi). They might be a little dated, too, but that doesn't bother me much. If an album from the 1980s sounds like it was recorded and written in the 1980s then it's really not a problem for me.

That 2009 performance of 'Nightwing' was excellent. Martin's voice is still very good, certainly. Thanks, Subrick.

Born to Lose is one of my favorite Tony Martin-era song. Also one of my favorite performance of Tony Martin. In fact, that album as a whole is my favorite as far as his singing is concerned.

Probably because he didn't come up with the melodies himself.